


On the Last Page With You

by KrisseyCrystal (AisukuriMuStudio)



Series: Femslash February 2019 (FE:A Edition) [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: AKA pretty much the ending I wanted for these two gay bbies, Amnesia, Angst, F/F, Femslash, Femslash February 2019, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I mean what else do you expect in your usual amnesia fair, Phila Lives au, RIP, THEY DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER, also bby Lucina is in this for like 2 seconds but, if that's not an AU i'm making it one now, since it was 2 seconds i didn't add her to the character list
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 03:12:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17737904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AisukuriMuStudio/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal
Summary: She’s been thinking about that lately:  help. About caring and love. About what the feeling courage is made of; how to identify it. How it might even be something more:  it might be able to be fostered. And how thinking outside of herself rather than staying holed up in her room with her hands pressed to her ears to close out the world might do such a thing like that.





	On the Last Page With You

**Author's Note:**

> Title and little lyrical opening and ending bits are from the song "You" by Marcus Warner (ft. Fatma Fadel). It's honestly such a good song but also so mood-fitting for this and I listened to it a lot while writing this. The title comes from the last line of the chorus, which is:
> 
> _When the end is in sight_  
>  _I'm on the last page with you_
> 
> part 2 of my contribution: MY RETCON ENDING for emmeryn and phila!! hope you're all having a wonderful Femslash February. enjoy!!

_Feeling hopeless in a warm embrace_

_Tell me where you came from_

_Breaking even in an endless space_

_Is this how we move on?_

 

* * *

“Are you sure you won’t change your mind? You two could stay in the palace here in Ylisstol. You’d never want for anything. We’d make sure you and Em were safe and comfortable in the Eastern Wing. No one ever goes there, and there’s a garden Em could take walks in and--”

“--and remain hidden from the outside world? And never be allowed to leave the palace grounds?”

“Well...I...”

“Ferox is best for her, Milord. Trust me. She can live a normal and happy life there, even if she never does regain her memories.”

The silence is what finally draws her attention away from the giggling babe in the crib. She stares between the midnight-cloaked prince and the lady of the sky as they look to each other. She cannot place it, she cannot name it, but her stomach twists when she sees the prince frown. His face is tight:  brow furrowed and mouth downturned. And his eyes--

\--ah.

Just like that, the name of such a thing comes to her:  pain.

The prince--no, _Exalt_ , as she is reminded again and again now--though the name seems ill-fitting, like a coat that is too large for his shoulders--is pained.

Still, his babe with the marked eye lies in the crib and giggles up at her and reaches for her fingers again. She turns to the little one and feels a small smile curl her lips. She cooes and the baby gurgles back.

“I don’t like her being so far away.”

“I will be with her in every moment. You need not fear for her safety or wellbeing; I will take care of her now in the ways I couldn’t before.” Her sky knight pauses and then adds, a bit more cheerfully, “But you can come visit us as often as you like. I would never take that right away from you, Your Worship.”

“Chrom. Please,” the crowned Exalt says. “You’ve always been family, Phila. Ever since you and Emmeryn first…” His sigh is troubled and weary and _sad_. So, so sad. “...you’ve never needed to call me by any title. That hasn’t changed, even after all that’s happened to you two.”

“Thank you. You’re...a good man, Chrom. I’m sure there will come a day Emmeryn will be able to tell you this herself:  how proud she is of you and all you’ve accomplished.”

The baby slips a finger of hers into her mouth and gnaws with toothless gums.

“There is nothing I long more for in this world than that, Phila.”

* * *

“What…” She frowns and tilts her head. “...for?”

“Hm?” The lady of the sky turns to her. She has eyes as red as the winter cranberries in their marketplace basket. Their sweet gaze falls upon the point of her slender, pale finger to the gauze and bottle they walked out of the apothecary with. “Oh. That’s medicine.”

“Not...sick.”

“Hm? No, I suppose we’re not.”

“...then why?”

Her sky knight hesitates. “Um...some things just need a little extra help sometimes. That’s all.”

Her first thought is that the woman must be talking about her. She may not know much, but she is aware of the heavy burden her lack of memories is to those who love her. Perhaps she should not be so surprised that the medicine is for her, then. Maybe it will help her recover her memories faster. That would be a good thing.

But that night, the lady of the sky with the red eyes and moon-braided hair takes the medicine and wrap with her into her own bedroom.

She does not give her the medicine the following morning, either.

She does not know why and as time passes, she eventually forgets to ask.

* * *

Their new house is a small cottage on the top of a hill in East Ferox, with white walls and long, whispery blue curtains and wicker furniture that creaks when she sits on its striped cushions. There is a tiny coastal fishing town nestled at the hill’s base. Sometimes she likes to travel down the steep path to hear the seagulls as they bay for the bread crumbs she keeps in her pockets. She does not like to go down when the ships are in port, though.

The lady of the sky asks her why one such day when they need the food from the marketplace and it is crawling with people from the fishing ships that are docked.

“The wharf…” she answers with a tight twist of her nose and mouth, “...too loud…”

She does not say it is because sometimes she sees the families who are so happy to see their fishermen and women welcome them home.

She does not know how to put that pain--the same which she could so clearly see mapped out on the Exalt of Ylisse’s face--and that which she is learning to identify right dead in the center of herself--into words yet. It exists, but it is not tangible. When she presses her thin, cold fingers to the space of skin right between her breasts, she cannot physically grasp the pain. She cannot tear it out from her ribcage and throw it away, no matter how much she wishes to. It lingers. It weighs.

There is no medicine for that kind of pain, the lady of the sky tells her with sad cherry eyes. It’s something that you have to care for in a different way.

So she does. She avoids the pain entirely and locks herself in her room and sits in the corner with her hands over her ears, golden locks loose and curled over her fingers, and refuses to go downhill to town until the ships leave.

The lady of the sky learns to not press her and on those days, she takes the journey alone.

* * *

The cleric with the wild blonde pigtails who she vaguely remembers from the war visits one day in the spring. She brings with her life and love and laughter and so much of it, it hurts, too--but in a different way. In a way she doesn’t know what to do with.

“I’ve brought gifts!” the girl crows with her arms full of trinkets and souvenirs and blankets and long robes that are so nice and lovely and not anything like the dresses the seamstress makes in the little fishing town. She drops them in a heap on their table and props her fists on her hips like she is proud of her labor. “And Chrom wanted me to tell you he’s sorry he couldn’t come. He really wanted to be here today more than anything, but being the Exalt is busy work, as I’m sure you--er--well--”

Her youthful face scrunches tight. “Never mind.”

_Pain_ , she notes. _That’s a look of pain, too._

“Oh! I almost forgot!” The girl fishes an envelope out of the pockets of her wide yellow dress and hands it to her lady of the sky. “Here’s your monthly allowance--plus a little extra to celebrate and all.”

Her sky knight sighs and takes the envelope stiffly. “I’ve told him he shouldn’t do this. The royal funds are for the _people._ ”

“And Chrom told _me_ to tell you that this time you can’t say no because it’s his birthday today!”

“May the 27th it may in fact be, but both you and your brother know this is not how birthdays work, Your Highness. Shouldn’t you be with him?”

“He said knowing that both of his sisters were okay and happy was gift enough for him.”

“You two…”

The blonde girl makes a funny noise with her tongue and lips like she’s spitting and it makes her giggle. As if encouraged, that draws her the attention of the healer, who then brightens and says, “Hey, Em! You should really work on getting Phila here to relax a little bit so she can enjoy her life of retirement.”

An exasperated sigh. “Stop calling it ‘retirement.’ You make me feel old.”

“Weeeeeelllllllllll…”

“...Phila…?” she calls.

Both pairs of eyes, red and blue, spin to her. The blues are the first to soften, glimmering and gentle like the down feathers of a singing jay.

“Y...yeah. You know, Sis. Phila. The woman who’s been taking care of you all this time?” she asks. “Who you used to lo--”

Her lady of the sky--Phila?--clears her throat pointedly. “We...haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“Oh…”

Silence falls over the room, tense and awkward.

Phila is the first to break it with a wave of the hand that’s holding the envelope of money. “You must be parched from your long journey north, Your Highness. Can I interest you in anything to drink? Are you hungry?”

“Oh, could you? I’m _starving_!”

Something glimmers as the youthful blonde clasps her hands together in front of her chest like in prayer. If she squints, she can see it more clearly:  a thin, silver band with a square-cut diamond embedded in its center.

A ring.

And all of a sudden, it erupts another feeling inside of her she hasn’t identified yet. It clangs long and loud against the insides of her skull like a bell and draws her forward until her hands enfold around the younger woman’s. She pulls them close to her face to see the cut and mold of the ring better. A frown weighs down her features.

“Wha--Sis?”

Baby blue eyes blink up at her in surprise. And then those same bright hues squeeze tight with laughter.

“Oh, yeah!” the girl--no, _young woman_ \--cackles. “I guess with how busy we were in the war and all, I never did get to tell you I got engaged. Sorry!” She laughs again and it’s perhaps the most wonderful sound she has ever heard. “Ha! That’s kind of funny. I guess even without your memories, some things don’t change. You’re still my big sister, huh?”

Her focus shifts:  away from the bright, diamond ring and to the young woman’s blue, blue eyes.

“Sister?” she echoes.

“Yeah. Sister.”

_Strange_ , she thinks as she watches the young woman smile up at her. She does not think she has yet seen both joy and pain worn on the same face at the same time. Does this feeling, too, have a name?

* * *

Her sister’s name is Lissa.

Lissa tells her this and more during her visit. They talk for hours and hours on end--or rather, Lissa talks for hours and hours and tells her stories of the people they know and their history together, and she herself listens without being aware that time has even passed. One evening, she takes Lissa down to the town at the base of the hill and they buy fresh fish and while Phila makes dinner, Lissa teachers her how to braid.

“It’s funny, because you taught me this when I was little, but I guess now I’m teaching you,” Lissa says with a broad smile at the back of her head. “Or maybe it’s reteaching?”

She asks Lissa to braid her hair like Phila’s:  to wrap it around the crown of her head. Lissa’s smile turns mischevious and she doesn’t understand until she sees the effect her new hairstyle has on Phila.

Her sky knight nearly drops their plates.

It’s hilarious and wonderful and she and Lissa laugh while Phila’s face darkens to match the color of her eyes and some part of her thinks that this is how things _should_ be. More happy. More laughter. More joy and smiles and comfort and home.

Less pain.

* * *

Lissa shows her all sorts of different ways to wear her hair, but she thinks she likes it pulled back behind her head best. When it hangs like a pony’s tail, her curls bounce when she walks and sway side to side with every movement. It makes it hard for Phila to look away from her when she wears it up like this; those merlot eyes stay on her, wide and awed from the moment she walks in a room to the moment she leaves it.

So she decides she wants to wear it up always.

Lissa approves.

* * *

“Do you really not remember anything about us?” her sister asks later that night after they’ve washed and tucked themselves side-by-side into her bed. Their golden hair lies loose and curls into one another above their pillows. “Like, you and I--we used to sleep together like this all the time. Especially when I had nightmares. You’d come right in and lay beside me and hold my hand until I fell asleep again. Does none of that sound familiar?”

She shakes her head slowly, her mouth pinched into a deep frown.

Lissa sighs in such a way that her cheeks puff big and round like a squirrel’s. “That’s so frustrating. Isn’t it? You’ve been up here in Ferox for a few months, now, and still nothing’s come back to you.”

She supposes it must be frustrating. She hasn’t thought much about it and, truthfully, has tried very hard not to.

That feeling has a name too, doesn’t it?

“Do you think something’s keeping you from remembering? Or maybe there’s something that could help you and we just haven’t thought of it yet?”

She thinks of the children in the town by the coast. She thinks of how excitedly they cheer when they see loved ones come home. She thinks of how terrifyingly _jealous_ \--she has since learned the ugly name of the ugly feeling:  jealousy--she is of the way lovers embrace themselves on their doorsteps. All of the things in town when the ships have returned scream of family and love and how she is _supposed_ to have that, isn’t she?

So she shrugs and she looks away, turning her gaze inward to the white sheets and their hands idle beside one another. Lissa takes her hand and squeezes it tight.

“That’s okay!” she says, as bright and warm as the sun. “We’ll figure it out. One way or another, we’ll get you your memories back, Em. And even if we never do and you’ll always be different than the big sister we knew, that’s okay, too. You know we love you no matter what, right?”

She thinks of the little brother who sent her money and their sister on _his_ birthday and surprisingly--except, perhaps not so surprisingly after all--she finds herself nodding.

“Good,” Lissa says like the world is already better for it.

* * *

Lissa leaves and time goes on and ships come and go from the town at the base of the hill just like the tide.

And then there’s a day Phila can’t get out of bed and she learns what the medicine she gets every month at the apothecary really was for:  a physical kind of pain, chronic.

Phila tells it to her through thin breaths, the story of how one day, she was hurt very badly. She doesn’t elaborate why beyond saying, “I was fighting to protect someone. I failed.” One of her hands drifts to her stomach. Her whole body flinches. “I was hurt in...the kind of way someone would normally die from. And yet...I survived.”

Funnily enough, she did, too, come to think of it.

How did they both get to this point?

“Can I...help?” She’s been thinking about that lately:  help. About caring and love. About what the feeling courage is made of; how to identify it. How it might even be something more:  it might be able to be _fostered._ And how thinking outside of herself rather than staying holed up in her room with her hands pressed to her ears to close out the world might do such a thing like that.

Phila looks to her with two dark, pinched brows. Each breath is labored; it must be hurting her to even be awake. “Aren’t...there ships in the harbor?” She shakes her head and looks away. A strand of her long, silver hair curls against her cheek. “No. It’s fine. I’ll...sleep. It’ll pass.”

The walk to town lasts three minutes. To get to the apothecary is another five--extended because of the volume of people roaming the marketplace now.

She does not feel afraid as she walks. She does not feel jealousy or hurt or any of the other negative emotions she has learned to name. She feels things like concern, worry, and urgency. She feels hurried, impatient.

When she sees the people embracing one another in the streets, the last thing she feels is pain.

She has someone waiting for her. Someone who needs her. Someone who will hug her when she is well enough to. In fact, she has many...someones who need her. There is no reason or room for jealousy; maybe she still has that kind of love and welcome home.

Maybe she never really lost it.

She holds the medicine in her hand and she sees Phila’s name in writing scribbled on the note wrapped around the bottle’s width. All of a sudden, she realizes two other things at once:

  1. She can, in fact, read. When did she forget she could do that?
  2. Phila’s name, right there in writing--



She almost drops the bottle.

_Phila._

The letters are perhaps, what sparks the memory within her. She can see her now, clad in full armor. Pale, steel blue and shimmering gold plates. The lady of the sky--her sky knight--Captain of her Guard and leader of the Pegasus Knights.  

_My Phila._

Her hand rises to her lips.

This time, the walk back from town takes two minutes instead of three.

* * *

She wakes up in the middle of the night for no reason at all except for the fact that Phila’s warmth is no longer at her back as it had been when she first laid down.

She jolts upright and turns, pressing her hand into the space Phila had been when she fell asleep. Phila is still there, but sitting up now, with the long curve of her back facing her and her legs dangling over the edge of the bed. Her bandages gleam white in the darkness, her moonlit hair spilling long over them.

“Phila,” she calls and Phila turns to her. “Are you…?”

Phila smiles. A wide and soft smile. She nods and bows her head; in her hand, she has clutched a loose shirt. She is careful not to turn too much to reveal her breasts to her--which is funny, as Lissa would say. She already saw them earlier when she brought the fresh gauze from the apothecary to rewrap her wounds; what does it matter to try and hide them now?

“Yes. I’m much better, now,” Phila murmurs. “Thanks to you.”

She smiles back. Warmth stirs low in her stomach. “Good. I’m...that...makes me...happy.”

That seems to surprise Phila. Her sky knight’s face reddens and she moves to pull on the shirt in her hand.

She reaches out to stop her.

“I remember you.”

Phila freezes. The look in her ruby eyes, shining in the dark, make heavy the warmth low inside her. There is hope there, and something more. “You do?” Phila asks.

She smiles.

“Phila,” she murmurs again. She pulls the shirt gently from Phila’s hands and lets it slip off the edge of the bed. She leans over her and cups her cheek. Her fingertips brush over the side of her face and low to her jaw. They trace a long line down her throat. “ _My_ Phila.”

“My Exalt,” Phila breathes, but makes no move in response:  no move to stop her, and yet, no move to return the touch either.

Yet.

Her touch drifts lower, across the flushed skin over her collarbone. She says firmly, “No,” with eyes dark and wanting. “Not...Exalt. Not anymore.” She kisses her lover’s neck and leans in close. Phila’s breath hitches as her fingers find a breast. Her sky knight--pegasus rider--bodyguard-- _lover--_ tilts her head back. “Call me by my name.”

“My…” Phila swallows. Her lips trace the movement and draw a moan from her. “...Emmeryn.”

She kisses a wide smile into the base of Phila’s neck. “Say it again.”

“Emmeryn,” Phila breathes and her voice shakes as her thumb flicks over the top of her breast. “ _Gods_ , Emmeryn--”

“--I’ve missed this,” Emmeryn says into her skin. She kisses her way back up the side of Phila’s neck and to the vulnerable skin under her jaw. “Haven’t you, my Phila?”

Phila pushes her back and down against the bed.

“More than you know,” she growls and when she kisses her, this time, it’s without hesitation.

* * *

 

_And you ask yourself_

_What is the life you knew?_

_Find our way home_

_And breathe it all in with you_

 

\- “You” by Marcus Warner (ft. Fatma Fadel)


End file.
